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After 10 months of planning, hacking and tweaking, the Lumo Play interactive projector is ramping up for the commercial market. The motion reactive smart toy was developed through a partnership with Highway1 in San Francisco, and will be launched on June 18th at Lime Lab.

From the outside, the device is quite simple. Lumo Play is a small fixture that attaches to the wall and projects interactive video on the floor. Once installed, kids can choose to play and learn with a variety of games and effects. Beyond brightening up the room, the Lumo Play is aiming to expand kids imaginations as well. The company provides online tools that empower kids to create their own content.

The Lumo Play mission is simple.

“Make any room an interactive playground.”

CEO Meg Athavale believes this can be done, and is preparing to raise the funds to do it. “We have generated a lot of interest from potential partners. Toy manufacturers seem to be very interested in solutions that combine digital content and physical toys and activities,” she shared.

Athavale and her team are not new to interactive environments. After years of designing and installing thousands of commercial solutions in museums and retail environments around the world, the Lumo Play team saw the potential to put their big idea into a smaller package. “It’s been really great to build Lumo from the ground up,” Athavale says. “We finally had a chance to incorporate some of the fun stuff our commercial users have suggested over the years.”

While parents spend $100 Billion on toys every year, Athavale observes that a lot of the toys are disposable, and that most children prefer the engagement of digital content. This has advantages, as digital content is less expensive to make and easier to update, but there are rising concerns that too much screen time is not healthy for children. Athavale is confident that Lumo Play’s physically controlled games will be the new way for kids to have fun. “It’s like jumping on a tablet; using your whole body and jumping right inside a game”, said Athavale. “By adding tools so kids can make their own content, we’ve effectively created a new platform for creative play.”

The first Lumo Play is expected to hit the shelves in 2015. To see examples of interactive floor projections done with Lumo Play, visit: http://www.lumoplay.com.

About Lumo Play
Founded in Winnipeg, MB Canada, the Lumo Play team is an eclectic group of coders, dreamers and problem solvers who started working together in 2010. Their interactive projection solutions have been used by clients like Adidas, Samsung, Air New Zealand and Coca Cola.

About Highway1Owned and operated by PCH International, Highway1 is a San Francisco based hardware incubator that helps companies take their prototype to a manufacturing ready product.